Film

A film, also called a movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a work of visual art used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.

The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.

Before the introduction of digital production, series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized celluloid (photographic film stock), usually at the rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion. The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and was not projected.

Contemporary films are usually fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition.

The name "film" originally referred to the thin layer of photochemical emulsion[2] on the celluloid strip that used to be the actual medium for recording and displaying motion pictures.

Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay, and flick. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Archaic terms include "animated pictures" and "animated photography".

Animated GIF of Prof. Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheibe No. X (Trentsensky & Vieweg 1833)
An animated sequence showing a horse galloping, with a jockey on its back
An animated GIF of a photographic sequence shot by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. His chronophotographic works can be regarded as very short movies that were recorded before there was a proper way to replay the material in motion.
Pauvre Pierrot (1892) repainted clip
A screenshot of Roundhay Garden Scene by the French Louis Le Prince, the world's first film
A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest surviving film produced using a motion picture camera, by Louis Le Prince, 1888
Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune, showing a projectile in the man in the moon's eye from 1902
A famous shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film and also an early science fiction film.
A clip from the Charlie Chaplin silent film The Bond (1918)
Salah Zulfikar, one of the most popular actors in the golden age of Egyptian Cinema
This 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools.
Founded in 1912, the Babelsberg Studio near Berlin was the first large-scale film studio in the world, and the forerunner to Hollywood. It still produces global blockbusters every year.
The Lumière Brothers, who were among the first filmmakers
An animated image of a horse, made using eight pictures.